‘Cheap’ oil is unaffordable when all the costs are added up. Frontline’s 3 part series on The Power of Big Oil comes at a critical time. Here’s the text of an email about it — but see the update immediately below it as well.
Dear FRONTLINE community,
For many years and across many platforms, we have been covering the threat and impacts of climate change.
Tonight, we’re launching our biggest project yet on the subject: an epic, three-part documentary series investigating America’s decades-long failure to confront climate change, and the role of the fossil fuel industry and one of its biggest players, ExxonMobil.
The Power of Big Oil spans more than 40 years and multiple presidential administrations. It draws on newly uncovered documents and more than 100 interviews with key players. And over the course of three nights, it sheds new light on what scientists, corporations and politicians have known about human-caused climate change for decades, the missed opportunities to mitigate the problem, and the lengths to which the fossil fuel industry went to cast doubt on the science, influence public perception and block action from the 1980s to the present day.
“I’m 83 years old. Three or four decades ago, we predicted it,” Martin Hoffert, a former NASA physicist who worked as a consultant for Exxon in the 1980s, says in tonight’s 90-minute film. “To have those predictions come true, that’s sort of the golden icon that you look for as a scientist. However, as a human being, and as an inhabitant of planet Earth, I’m horrified to watch the lack of response to this.”
Part one of The Power of Big Oil premieres tonight at 10/9c on PBS (check local listings) and on YouTube, and will be available to stream starting at 7/6c on pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS Video App.
The series — which is from a team of award-winning filmmakers and journalists that includes Dan Edge, Jane McMullen, Gesbeen Mohammad, Robin Barnwell, Sara Obeidat, Emma Supple and Russell Gold — continues April 26 and May 3.
As ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies defend their records, the world’s leading climate scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issue new warnings about the dangers of climate change, and the war on Ukraine highlights the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, The Power of Big Oil is an urgent and essential exploration of how we got here.
Thank you for watching.
OOPS
I just got a followup email from Frontline — Part 2 is airing tonight. (Part 1 ran April 19, but can be streamed online. There are links in the followup message below.
For decades, the fossil fuel industry has cast doubt and delayed action on climate change.
Our investigation of how they did it continues tonight.
Episode two of our three-part docuseries The Power of Big Oil chronicles how, as scientific evidence of human-caused climate change mounted in the 2000s, the industry continued to question the science, and went to new lengths to shape American politics and stall climate policy.
Watch The Power of Big Oil, Part Two: Doubt tonight at 10/9c on PBS (check local listings) and on our YouTube channel, or stream it starting at 7/6c on pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS Video App.
If you missed part one of the series, Denial, which premiered last Tuesday, April 19, you can stream it in the PBS Video App or online anytime.
The Power of Big Oil concludes next Tuesday, May 3, with part three, Delay.
Thank you for watching.
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PATRICE TADDONIO
Digital Writer & Audience Development Strategist, FRONTLINE
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You may have received an earlier email that went out in error. Part two of The Power of Big Oil premieres tonight, not part one.
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We are in a critical time for the planet. Fossil Fuel interests are determined to squeeze every last dollar out of the ground even as climate change accelerates. A man whose fortune depends on burning coal blocks action. The party that supports actually trying to save the planet may be driven from power because people want cheap gasoline — with prices soaring because of the corrupt dictators of petro-states and their ongoing wars.
In my own state, New York, plans to start moving the state away from fossil fuels by such actions as banning new natural gas installations are getting pushback from fossil fuel interests. The propane industry has created an astroturf group called “Smarter NY Energy” — their Facebook ads, editorials, etc. are spreading disinformation to fight electrification with scare stories about heat pumps, unaffordable costs, and worries about poor people and the middle class being driven out of the state because they can’t afford clean energy.
(Two must-read stories about the natural gas industry can be found at Mother Jones: How the fossil fuel industry convinced Americans to love gas stoves, and Gas stoves leak greenhouse gases, even when turned off.)
The war in Ukraine has brought energy policy back into the spotlight not just as a climate change issue, but also as one with big implications for national security. Vladimir Putin is propped up by Russia’s fossil fuel money and the political leverage supplies give him over Europe.
The Saudis have funded terrorism for decades with petro-dollars, and their ability to control world oil prices with supply restrictions gives them undeserved power. Iran’s oil reserves have made them a target; as with the invasion of Iraq to seize oil. Outside interests worked to subvert Iranian democracy to get their hands on the oil, and oil props up the theocratic regime that resulted to counter it. With rare exceptions, the wealth to be gained by exploiting oil and natural gas reserves has had a corrosive effect around the world.
It’s about the future — as in having one we can live in. There are multiple ways to watch it; find time to do so please.